I. What's New

A. David's Going
B. Community Impact Training Institute Fall Semester Begins

II. Resources

A. Computer Donations Available
B. New Fact Sheet: Latino Computer and Internet Use
C. New Website: KnowledgePlex
D. New Search Engine: National Service Research Center
E. CivicNet Online Conference (Sep 18)
F. Applications Invited for Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence
G. TrainingPoint
H. Free Training for Women
I. TechSoup Articles
1. 3Com Urban Challenge Program
2. Networking Basics
J. Usability and Maintainability: Some guidelines to consider when choosing a nonprofit database
K. Could Online Gaming Transform Community?
L. An examination of the relationship between nonprofits and open source software, using TechRocks and Ebase as a case study:
What can be learned from one of the first nonprofit open source communities?

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I. What's New
A. Our former VISTA and current Project Coordinator's last day will be this Friday Sept. 9th. We are sorry to see him go and wish him luck at the University of Sussex where he will be attending graduate school.

B. Community Impact Training Institute Fall Semester Begins
Our new semester of training has begun. If you would like to received a brochure, please email andrianal@uwsepa.org or call 215-665-2525 to speak to Adriana Levy our Training Coordinator. The following classes are coming up in September:
Microsoft Office for You: Introduction to MS Office
9/16/02 9:30 am - 12:30 pm ($40, $32*)
MS Office for You: Word
9/17/02 9:30 am - 4:00 pm ($75, $60*)
MS Office for You: PowerPoint
9/18/02 9:30 am - 4:00 pm ($75, $60*)
MS Office for You: Excel
9/19/02 9:30 am - 4:00 pm ($75, $60*)
MS Office for You: Access
9/20/02 9:30 - 4:00 pm ($75, $60*)

To register contact Theresa Lake at Theresa@uwsepa.org or 215-665-2441. For more information contact Adriana Levy at Andrianal@uwsepa.org or 215-665-2525.

*Price for members of the T4T Assistance Program. For more information about this program contact Adriana Levy (teamtech@uwsepa.org or 215-665-2525) or check out our website http://www.uwsepa.org/team4tech/

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II. Resources

A. Computer Donations Available
First Union National Bank is giving away free used computers to non-profit, community-based organizations in Philadelphia. The bank is updating its computer equipment and is willing to donate the previous computers as a way to give back to the community.

To be considered for this opportunity, send a fax, on your organization's letterhead, with a brief description of your organization and your contact information to: Bevelyn Webb, (215) 229-8541.

B. New Fact Sheet: Latino Computer and Internet Use
The Latino Issues Forum developed the following fact sheet to look at the Key Demographic Factors in Computer and Internet Use for the Latino population. According to their report, in 2001, only 40% of Latinos had a computer in their home compared to the national average of 54%. When it came to Internet use the difference was even larger, only 32% of Latinos used the Internet compared to the national average of 51%.

To download a copy of the fact sheet and learn more about the Forum, go to:
http://www.lif.org/technology/fact_sheet.html
--
C. New Website: KnowledgePlex
Check it out! KnowledgePlex.org!
This website is sponsored by the Fannie Mae Foundation, with a specialized focus on Housing and Community Economic Development. You can sign-up to get email updates, and also "personalize" the website so you can keep good information just a click away. It is easy to search to find reports on almost any topic.
http://www.knowledgeplex.org/

D. New Search Engine: National Service Research Center
The National Service Resource Center would like to announce a new Website feature: Advanced Search.

Use our Advanced Search form - http://www.etr.org/nsrc/adv_search.html - to search the entire NSRC site, or just the Sample Forms Collection, with sound-alike word matching and return up to one hundred results at a time.

The National Service Resource Center is a comprehensive resource for all kinds of information specific to community service programs.

More questions? Send email to nsrcwebmaster@etr.org,

E. CivicNet Online Conference (Sep 18)
We're very excited to announce an upcoming online conference. You're invited. To find out who's coming, and to sign up for further announcements please visit the CivicNet '02 website and register today! Registration includes a CD-ROM of the full CivicNet '02 proceedings, as well as a copy of the upcoming edition of the Community Technology Review

** CivicNet '02: Connecting the Dots **
Build Local Power With Community Networks
September 18-October 2, 2002
http://www.civicnet02.net/

CivicNet '02 takes place for two weeks, world-wide, bringing together global networks of people, resources, and practices that put information and communication technology (ICT) to work to sustain economic development, enhance quality of community life and engage stakeholders in decisions that matter.

Who will attend? Community network, community technology and community economic development practitioners, journalists, public officials, artists, tool-builders, teachers, students, entrepreneurs, consultants, researchers, funders, librarians, investors, and enthusiasts who regard themselves as front-line innovators and catalysts. Does this sound like you?

"We Create the Process - You Create the Content!"
Do you have a theme in mind that should become part of CivicNet '02? Launching event will be three roundtables of distinguished guests who will tackle three key themes:

* The Global/Local Dynamic of Community Networking
* The New Community Technologies of Freedom
* Best Practices for Stakeholder Engagement

CivicNet '02 kicks off September 18th and will offer round the clock access through October 2nd. Registration is $35 ($25 early bird special if you pre-register before 9/1) and includes a CD-ROM of the full CivicNet '02 proceedings, as well as a copy of the upcoming edition of the Community Technology Review. Join us in a unique opportunity to tell stories about your community experience and connect with other community networkers from all around the world.

For more information and for your early registration discount, please visit us at
http://www.civicnet02.net/ today.

F. Applications Invited for Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence

Deadline: December 16, 2002

The Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence (RBA) seeks to honor urban places in the United States that embody excellence, and to celebrate their contribution to the richness and diversity of the urban experience.

The Award for Urban Excellence is given to five winning projects in each biennial award cycle. One Gold Medal Winner receives $50,000; four Silver Medal Winners are awarded $10,000 each. The winning project may use prize money in any way that benefits the project.

Projects may include any type of place which makes a positive contribution to the urban environment. To be eligible, a project must be a real place, not just a plan or a program. Since site visits are integral to the award process, the project must have been in operation for a sufficient amount of time to demonstrate success. The project must be located in the contiguous 48 states.

Urban environment is broadly defined to include cities, towns, or villages; a neighborhood within a city; an urban county; or an officially recognized region made up of two or more cities. Applications may be initiated by any person who has been involved in the planning, development, or operation of a project. (Note: Projects from the City of Boston, Massachusetts, and those receiving funds from the City of Chicago are not eligible for this round of the awards program.)

For further information and complete program guidelines, see the Bruner Foundation Web site. Applications can be downloaded at the site.

RFP Link: http://www.brunerfoundation.org/p/rba2003.html

For additional RFPs in Community Development/Improvement,
visit: http://fdncenter.org/pnd/rfp/cat_community.jhtml

Copyright © 2000-2002, the Foundation Center.
All rights reserved. Permission to use, copy, and/or
distribute this document in whole or in part for
non-commercial purposes without fee is hereby
granted provided that this notice and appropriate credit
to the Foundation Center is included in all copies.

G. TrainingPoint
http://www.trainingpoint.org an online curriculum-sharing resource created by CompassPoint

H. Free Training for Women
Please feel free to share with your neighbors, etc. Thank you.
eLit - Empowerment through Learning Information Technology
Mission: Empower socially and economically challenged women all over the world through technology education -- specifically, free computer classes.
Classes will be held at Lombard Central Presbyterian Church, located at 42nd & Powelton Ave..
CLASSES ARE FOR WOMEN ONLY-- Minimum Age is 17. (A lab will be set up for children to attend, although no formal instruction is available at this time).
Classes are Free - no hidden costs. They supply everything.
Those who successfully complete the class will have a chance to receive a free computer.
Two classes will be offered:
Basic Windows (no prior knowledge or experience necessary: class includes mouse, keyboard skills, basic windows, internet, email, windows explorer and some basic Word)
Microsoft Word (experience required)
New Classes begin on September 15, 2002 from 5:30 to 7:30 pm
Offer Classes every fall, spring and summer semesters. .
If you have clients who are interested: either you or they can call:
Michelle Shaw, Program Director, eLit
215-740-8283 or email her at: mshaw@elitonline.org

I. TechSoup Articles
1. Helping Your City Bridge The Digital Divide
3Com Urban Challenge Program:
Find out more at
http://www.techsoup.org/btc.cfm?file=news_article.cfm&newsid=1009

TechSoup offers a guide to discounted software. Your first stop for software purchases.
http://www.techsoup.org/btc.cfm?file=articlepage.cfm&ArticleId=39&topicid=2

2. Networking Basics
Sharing information is the core practice of most organizations, yet
many small to mid-sized nonprofits do not take advantage of computer
networking. This article provides a thorough introduction into the
components, costs, and benefits of an office network:
http://www.techsoup.org/btc.cfm?file=articlepage.cfm&ArticleId=410&topicid=3

Copyright (c) 2002, CompuMentor/TechSoup.
All rights reserved.

J. Usability and Maintainability: Some guidelines to consider when choosing a nonprofit database [The following article is database-agnostic. It is designed to help your organization avoid "database hell" -- whether you are likely to create a custom database, use a commercial software package, or use freely download database software like ODB or Ebase. Please let us know if it is useful! A longer list of database resources, aimed at many different audiences, is at:
http://www.techsoup.org/articles.cfm?topicid=6&topic=Databases ]

(Originally Published on April 26, 2002 at:
http://www.techsoup.org/articlepage.cfm?ArticleId=382)

by Rich Cowan

When I got back into the area of nonprofit database consulting four years ago, I naturally assumed that the use of databases in nonprofits would have advanced along with other high-tech innovations. Now, after learning about the donor and contact database systems used by over 100 small nonprofit and activist organizations, I'm not too sure.

Computers are certainly more capable -- in terms of graphics, speed, and storage capacity -- than they were ten years ago, and some groups are quite happy with their data management systems. But more often than not, the nonprofits I hear about have failed to reach the technological "promised land."

Usually these nonprofits have fallen into at least one of three traps:

The database system is complicated enough that only one person in the organization has been trained to use it effectively, creating a bottleneck and potentially a crisis if that person leaves.

o The database system is complicated enough that only one person in the organization has been trained to use it effectively, creating a bottleneck and potentially a crisis if that person leaves.

o After several years of using a database, a sizable portion of the information collected is obsolete or defunct, making it difficult for a group to locate contacts who are still active.

o An organization "homebrewed" its database using Filemaker or Microsoft Access, but the developer (the executive director's brother-in-law is a phrase I often heard) never really committed the time to make it usable or to get all the bugs out.

It seems to me that part of the problem is a definitional one. When people use the term "database," they are often referring to the computer programmer's definition of a database as one or more collections of "records," with each record made up of a fixed number of "fields". This definition is general enough to fit any kind of database that might be created using a system like Access, yet it fails to capture the practical reality of what a database means to a nonprofit.

The nonprofit's ultimate goal, after all, is not to gather as much data as possible on constituents and donors and volunteers in digital form. It is to allow staff and volunteers to share the work of improving the relationships established with those contacts and to continually record progress.

A nonprofit database is really a relationship tracking system. Thus the best nonprofit database systems make it painless to use and maintain the information about these relationships.

Of course, many ingredients go into good system design or evaluation. The following are a few suggestions that will help you avoid falling into the traps I mentioned above:

o Be sure that your relationships are well-understood before you hire a database consultant. A national educational organization was using about 4 different database fields to determine who got the newsletter, and only the founder completely understood how to use them. When they wanted to convert their database to a new system, these "rules" were finally written down, but they were ambiguous. In this case, the organization had not completely determined its business logic, which is a prerequisite to good database design.

o Make sure the database system includes shortcuts for the tasks you repeat most often. A national economic justice group is currently supported by more than 5,000
grassroots donors. They moved their system to a free database package that required navigating through several screens and fields to enter a single donation. After navigating through these screens more than 100 times in a week, they realized that they needed a different system, and they are now in the process of transition.

o See if the relationship tracking features can be customized as the organization changes. A state-based citizen participation group in Massachusetts started using a custom database system in 1985 and had defined about a dozen "participation codes" indicating the involvement of the most active of its 4,000 members. In 1999 they recognized that most of these participation codes were obsolete, but the system had no mechanism to easily remove or hide that obsolete information. Needless to say, they are now moving to a more modern system.

o Make sure that there is a method for avoiding duplicates.
A congressional campaign had a strong base in the Armenian community, and entered about 400 names into an Access database. Though there were initially only about four pages of Armenian names, some of these names were typed in three times. Within a few weeks, many of these potential supporters began receiving six phone calls for the same event and the problem was not immediately corrected. Needless to say, the candidate's support in the Armenian community was never the same. At a minimum, a database should have a mechanism to allow the screening of duplicates during data entry and during the "import" operation.

o Consider long-term maintenance issues. The educational organization I mentioned earlier often included capitalized words like "DECEASED" and "DEFUNCT" and "XXX" within the address fields so that they could scan their printed labels and remove the bad addresses before each mailing. Though their instinct not to completely delete those records was a good one, they would have been better off if their database system had a standard mechanism to segregate inactive names from active ones.

o Add prospects judiciously. It's easy nowadays to collect thousands of names from other groups and add them to your main database. But unless your system keeps these "prospects" segregated from your "active" list, this is generally a bad idea. You might be better off keeping "prospecting" lists in a separate list. A relationship tracking system cannot work well if you have no relationship with most of the people it contains. Prospects can be added to this system if they show actual interest in your group.

o Add fields judiciously. A national environmental group I worked with created a Filemaker database in 1992 with around 80 fields for every contact. This made sense for the first couple hundred contacts entered. But within six months, 20 of these fields were no longer used, and within a year, half were no longer used. The group could have saved itself from a major redesign if it started with only the fields that were absolutely necessary.

Finally, it is important to consider the scale and budget of your organization. If your group does not have in-house technology support, don't spend $3,000 on a complex system, as an immigrant organization in Boston did last year. This organization had to mothball their new database after only a couple of months because staff members could not use it.
Keeping it simple (KISS, as they say) can go a long way toward making the transition to a new database system a smooth one.

Rich Cowan is founder of Organizers' Collaborative and developed the Organizers' Database software program, which may be downloaded at http://organizersdb.org.

OCtech is a low-volume e-newsletter on computers and social
| change. To submit something, please send it to:
| oc@organizenow.net (put "octech" in the subject line)
| To subscribe or unsubscribe, please see the web page:
| http://lists.democracygroups.org/mailman/listinfo/octech
|------------------------------------------------------------
| (c) 2002: feel free to redistribute this message as long as
| our address and subscription information are included.
| Organizers' Collaborative - Box 400897, Cambridge, MA 02140
|------------------------------------------------------------

K. Could Online Gaming Transform Community?
Sometimes, what some of us may see as merely "trivial" pursuits are at the heart of some exciting technological developments which ultimately have an impact on all of us. Online gaming is one such arena which has seen a massive shift and battle in recent months and years.
What relevance does this have to me as a community professional, you might ask. Well, on the one hand you might find if you are running a teenage web site that you are in competition with online games as many more players take to the Internet as a form of communication and social entertainment. On the other hand, you might actually find yourself having to embrace the new online gaming community in order to maximize your community and have to accommodate their need for interaction.
Gaming as social? Gaming as communication? Some mistake, surely? Well, no.. The big push in online gaming has come from the console manufacturers, namely Microsoft and Sony. Big players, with big bucks and big visions of what online gaming should be. And their shared vision is very much geared to their consoles being used as a platform for exchange between gamers online. Both rivals' intent is to create a global interactive gaming network - in other words, a massive community of console players.
This week Sony launched its challenge for supremacy in the US with an Internet adaptor which allows their Playstation2 console to connect to the Internet for online gaming and communication. Later this year Microsoft's Xbox will take to the web too, with the Xbox Live offering. The Xbox Live is however, not only a means to play games online but also a means for players to talk to one another via a Communicator headset, AND a means to connect to other players wherever they are on the system using a Gamertag ID, "buddy list" and "invite" facilities.
The online gaming industry could redefine what we all know as community, simply because of the sheer volume of participants in it, the ease with which those participants will be able to connect with one another, and finally, will raise the horizons of what is expected for online interaction and entertainment.
Of course, online gaming is not for all. But the online gamers of today are your market in a few years' time. They will be the accountants in your professional community. The fans within your music community. Those in need of advice from your medical community.
Are you game?
©2002, CommunityAnswers.com

From "Social Source Newsletter" v1 #2

L. What can be learned from one of the first nonprofit open source communities? Can we learn how and why open source is relevant to nonprofit organizations from their experience?
~ What is Ebase?
~ How do they balance community, leadership & fundraising?
~ Should there be open source nonprofit software built by nonprofits?
~ What lessons can be learned?

NOTE: I am not affiliated with TechRocks and write this impression of ebase as a member of the ebase community of consultants.

===============================================================What is Ebase(R)?
===============================================================

Ebase is the name of a constituent relationship management system built by nonprofits for nonprofits. The name ebase is owned by Techrocks, the underlying software is licensed under a GNU Public License (GPL) -compatible free software license. Ebase allows four "freedoms" important for any open source product:

--> Freedom to run the program, for any purpose
--> Freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs
--> Freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor
--> Freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits

As long as you don't call it ebase, you can do whatever you like with the software.

Ebase is a freely downloadable application built in Filemaker for Windows and Mac OS. Ebase v2.0 is designed for nonprofit leaders, fundraisers, activist organizers, and database administrators. It allows them to track, manage, and maximize relationships with their donors, volunteers, members and other constituents via every major touch point: email, web, phone, mail, etc.

===============================================================
History of Ebase
===============================================================
In 1997, TechRocks created Ebase, constituent relationship management (CRM) software built by and for nonprofits. Driven by the need of a number of environmental organizations for an affordable and robust donor management tool, Techrocks (then Desktop Assistance) created a donor management application that was latter made available to a broad range of nonprofits.

Ebase has always been built with the community in mind. The first version was built with the participation of a small number of nonprofits. In June 2000, a much larger group was convened to define the design direction for v2.0. Most recently, for three days at the end of May at a retreat center up an eight-mile dirt road in Montana, 30 people worked 13 hour days to figure out how ebase can best serve their NPO constituencies and what the community needed to do to make ebase a viable, effective alternative to commercial constituent relationship management solutions.

This was an open source process in terms of software *requirements* but not in terms of software *development*, which fell primarily on the shoulders of two Techrocks staffers: Bob Schmitt and Clif Graves.

~ It is (relatively) easy to find nonprofit partners that will help you figure out what your application is suppose to do.
~ It is hard to find nonprofit partners that will help you code (via contributing developers or contributing money).
~ Nonprofit open source seems to start from customer needs rather than the traditional open source route of starting from cool technical functionality.

===============================================================
Community Process Yields Results
===============================================================

Ultimately, TechRocks created an application where a nonprofit can map their business process, convert that business process into what are called item codes, and have a powerful, customized CRM application. Far from a contact manager, over a year of intensive software development on version 2.0 has yielded an application comparable with, and more useful to nonprofits than, commercial solutions targeted at small and medium sized businesses, such as Microsoft CRM (formerly Great Plains). The quality of this application I attribute mostly to Techrock's open, community process of defining what the application should do.

The inherent complexity of this type of application requires that most nonprofits have support in implementing Ebase v2.0 and that a community of consultants and trainers be available to support ebase installations. Recognizing this, TechRocks began to build a community of users, consultants, and developers in 2002 that can support and extend Ebase using open source strategies relevant to their nonprofit mission. This process started well after the application was built.

~ Do you build the software first, build the community first, or try to build both at the same time? Techrocks is having luck with the software first and the community next.
~ The biggest pro of Techrock's approach is that the community has something concrete (defined, working software) to rally around.
~ The biggest con of Techrock's approach is that the community seems to figure that Techrock's must not need any help, making community building a difficult challenge.

===============================================================
Leadership: Who Leads, How Do you Grow Leaders
===============================================================

Is an open source community an egalitarian meritocracy based on socialist values?

Is an open source community composed of a single leader with a number of community members that benefit from, and support to a certain extent, the leader's work on software development?

Basically, who leads and what is their leadership style?

Techrocks is in a clear leadership position on the project which has made the production of software based on community requirements by Techrocks staff fairly simple. This same style has not stimulated other individuals and organizations to contribute to ebase with code, developers, financially, or even just with some sweat-equity writing documentation. Interestingly enough, this has not been the case with open source projects like Zope.

The more I think about this, the more I am convinced that the nonprofit sector has more experience in community, collaboration, and community leadership than any existing open source effort. The sector has worked hard on collaboration. We have built a specialty in community building. Most of the nonprofit sector is fundamentally about bringing people together. These are the lessons that should be integrated into nonprofit open source communities.

So the conclusions that I reach have nothing to do with open source and everything to do with community.

~ Strong leadership encourages nonprofit participants **not** to make significant investments because they think the leader will make those investments.
~ Collaboration is a ladder built on trust starting with information sharing leading to coordination leading to cooperation leading to collaboration over a significant period of time.
~ As the more time goes by and community matures, more and more resources external to Techrocks are being invested in ebase. Perhaps their model of taking responsibility and then seeding it the community will be effective.

===============================================================
Responsibility/Fundraising: Managing it/Paying For It
===============================================================

Techrocks has taken sole responsibility for managing and paying for ebase. This is fundamentally different from a community collaborative or open source community where responsibility/funding is shared among a small group of player (often the group is very small- two or three players). By taking this role, they were the sole fundraisers for the project. Without Techrocks, there is no software.

In open source communities, the software often lives on after a major partner leaves (even in communities like Zope where a corporation is behind the software). With the effort to port Ebase to a non-Filemaker platform, Techrocks is working on bringing together partners that will form more of a collaborative of shared responsibility for the code and for fundraising. This may bring ebase to the point where the software is not dependant on Techrocks.

Another characteristic that the ebase project highlights is that nonprofit open source projects are more funding dependent than traditional open source efforts. Nonprofits do not have software development resources and therefore need to buy them as part of a project. Throw in the overhead rates, and it takes a significant amount of money for a nonprofit to participate in an open source project.

- If a single organization takes total responsibility for a project, the project is totally dependent on the organization. The open source goal of having the software live on beyond the involvement of key partners cannot be achieved.
- There are plenty of examples of nonprofit collaboratives with joint responsibilities and fundraising (mostly lead agency models), but I know of no examples of a nonprofit software project run this way.

===============================================================
Nonprofit Open Source Is Different From "Normal" Open Source
===============================================================

Traditional open source projects have one set of players: developers.

Developers decide what to build, build it, and use the resulting software.

Nonprofit open source is a lot more complex. There are technology service organizations (TSO), intermediaries like Techrocks and NPower that deal with nonprofit technology trends and provide direct services to nonprofits. There are consultants that support TSOs and also provide direct services to nonprofits. There are customers, the NPOs that will actually use the software. There are developers, often hired by customers or TSOs to build software.

I feel like nonprofit open source communities need to be driven by the TSOs. TSOs are the only organizations specifically focused on NPO technology trends and sector initiatives. These are the folks with the tech savvy to understand the benefits of open source and the connection with customers to ensure that something useful gets built. They are also the ones to identify, within the sector, where the commercial options fall short.

Customers will always be the source of software requirements, but are unlikely to be sophisticated in their thinking-- most ebase customers don't really want to be part of an open source community, they just want to download the software, use it, and have their questions answered.

Consultants that deal with NPO needs every day are looking for the best solutions. In the case of ebase, they find the low start up costs, ability to customize the code base, and responsiveness of the ebase community created by Techrocks, allows them to deliver solutions that meet their clients needs in ways that commercial options cannot.

Finally, professional software developers don't have much of a role in ebase. The ebase development team is on Techrocks' staff. This is one place that where the quality of software can be increased if professional developers are engaged in building the tools in the first place.

===============================================================
Is There a Need for NPOs to Create Software?
===============================================================

One of the most common reactions to Nonprofit Open Source in the NPO technology community is that nonprofits are not software developers.
They should just take software " off the shelf" from commercial vendors (or even the traditional open source community) and use it.
Along with this argument comes the one that NPOs need never find themselves in a situation where they need to build custom software.

Yet the fact is, today, millions of dollars are being spend by NPOs on custom software.

Should nonprofits like Techrocks build software?
They met an unmet need and are currently number 3 in the marketplace. The market seems to think it was a good idea. They serve a size of NPO that few commercial entities would consider a market.

Should collaboration (via GPL License) be the rule in nonprofit software development?
So far ebase is the only major example. Most of the TSO community seems not to think it is a good idea (the software they build is not open source).

What is the strength of nonprofit open source?
Depends on from whose perspective you examine the question. Ebase works well for TSOs, consultants, and customers. Does it work better than commercial solutions? The installed base of ebase seems to indicate yes. So perhaps the strength is that it more precisely aligns the functionality of the software to the needs of customers.

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TAKE ACTION
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~ Explore a partnership with another organization to build a piece of software critical to your mission, but not provided by commercial software developers.
~ Send david (david@social-source.org) an email with 5 reasons open source *is* or is *not* relevant to nonprofit organizations.

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REFERENCES
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http://www.ebase.org/
http://www.techrocks.org/
http://www.zope.org/
http://www.fsf.org/

Copyright (c) 2002 David Geilhufe
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or
any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts and no Back-Cover Texts.
A copy of the license can be found at
http://www.fsf.org/licenses/fdl.txt.